Dialogues

This dialogue introduces two important objectives in Esperanto – to reduce where possible unnecessary extra vocabulary and to avoid ambiguity. ‘Mal’ is just the first of forty or so affixes used to avoid creating totally new words. It enables the re-use of familiar material. Requiring adjectives to take plural endings whenever the nouns they accompany have them ensures clarity in all circumstances. It also increases harmonious sonority.

Leciono 1

Leciono 3

Answers are offered below

Did you write out ‘answers’ for Lesson 1? Add your new ones to them now. Has writing things out paid any dividends? Writing is another medium besides listening and talking. It is also visual. You see what you have written, which will help later.

1. ‘Estas‘ covers English’s ‘am‘, ‘is‘ and ‘are‘. Similarly ‘estis‘ covers English ‘was‘ and ‘were‘. ‘have been‘ and ‘has been‘ and possibly helped by an adverb even ‘had been‘ as you’ll see later.

2. The endings ‘i’ used for example in ‘aperi’ and ‘u’ used for example in ‘diru’, ‘rigardu’, ‘prenu’ are explained later. Similarly the ending ‘us’ used for example in ‘plaĉus’.

3. The construction ‘books are not pleasing to me‘ or even more oddly for an English speaker ‘not pleasing to me [are] books‘ is common in many languages, e.g. Irish, French, Spanish, German etc. Meeting it in Esperanto can assist learners tackle something similar in other languages, if they have not already met it.